• Investment World
• eWorld
• Brand Line
• Mentor
• Life
• Brand Quest
• The New Manager

Stocks

• Quotes
• SE Diary
• Scoreboard
• Open-End Mutual Fund

Cross Currency

• Rates
  
  

Shipping

• Ports
  
  

Archives

• Yesterday
• Datewise
• Resources
• In Focus
• In Depth
• Events 2007

Group Sites

• The Hindu
• The Hindu ePaper
• Business Line
• Business Line ePaper
• Sportstar
• Frontline
• The Hindu eBooks
• The Hindu Images

Vinson Kurian

Thiruvananthapuram, Feb 25 Contrary to forecasts, the weather-making La Nina event in the equatorial Pacific has started showing a weakening trend with a warming anomaly rearing its head along the eastern coast of South America.

This has not, however, prompted a change in forecasts for a good initial burst and progress of the Indian monsoon, which has been observed to benefit from a prevailing La Nina. Latest updates from the International Research Institute (IRI) for Climate Prediction and Society at Columbia University and the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasting (ECMWF) bear this out.

Back home, the building heat in the country’s northwest as well as nearby plains has sparked fears that the standing rabi crop could be affected if no weather system intervened. India Met Department (IMD) forecasts suggest that prevailing conditions, marked by above normal temperatures, may hold over the next five days. A feeble western disturbance is seen drifting in to cause isolated snow/rain over Jammu and Kashmir.

Other regions expected to witness thundershowers are the northeast and south coastal peninsula. The rest of the country is forecast to witness largely dry and hot conditions for the next five days, the IMD said.

The warming trend in the eastern Pacific has caused unusual rains over the Peruvian desert, which should normally be witnessing suppressed convection during a La Nina phase. But what should come as a relief to monsoon watchers is that the contra-indicating El Nino would take at least another year to revive.

Confirming this to Business Line, Dr Swadhin Behera of the Frontier Research Center for Global Change (FRCGC) at the Japanese Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (Jamstec) said that the colder than normal temperature anomalies persist at the subsurface of eastern equatorial Pacific.

“It normally takes a few seasons before these cold subsurface anomalies are replaced by warm anomalies. Some ensemble members of the forecast experiments conducted by Dr Jing-Jia Luo at the FRCGC suggest that an El Nino might develop by spring of 2009 only.

Strong westerly wind bursts during that time would scale up the El Nino. Winter monsoon winds might also have a bearing on the denouement.”

Earlier estimates by Dr Luo had shown that the La Nina may linger until the spring of 2009.

More Stories on : Climate & Weather

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page

Stories in this Section
BSE to buy 26 pc stake in NMCE

Copyright © 2008, The Hindu Business Line. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu Business Line